Good design … in ten commandments

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to design lately.

Dieter Rams was an industrial designer for Braun, and had some innovative ideas in his design philosophy.

His ten commandments of good design has been making the rounds of the architecture and design sites I frequent.

What I love about his “commandments”, is that these principles can be applied to any discipline. I can think of many uses for Ram’s slogan, “less, but better”.

Is your design “good design”?

Here’s the list:

• Innovative
• Useful
• Aesthetic
• Self-explanatory
• Unobtrusive
• Honest
• Durable
• Thorough
• Environmentally-friendly
• As little design as possible

… having fun in the tech sandbox

I’ve been spending some time making tweaks to this blog, my Tumblr, and experimenting with some new web tools.

I’m now using Feedburner for RSS feeds and for tracking blog stats. The old RSS feed works fine. The new feed gives me more insight on site visits and includes handy widgets for readers to email and bookmark posts. I’ve also added an RSS feed for blog comments.

I’ve been exploring vod:pod as a way to display some of my favourite videos. I love vod:pod because it lets you search for videos from YouTube, Google, Yahoo!, myspace and metacafe. Take a look at the vod:pod widget at the bottom of the page.

I’ve been spending more time on Twitter. Twitter is a microblog that lets you post messages via the Twitter site, Facebook, IM, SMS, Twitterific, or Twitbin. Facebook friends will see my Twitter updates feeding into my profile. To learn more about Twitter, read the “Newbie’s Guide to Twitter”.

My Tumblr blog, mélange tumblelog, got a big overhaul this week. Microblogs often don’t have comments or categories, as they are intended to be an easier and quicker way to blog. Coming from a world that likes to categorize things has made my Tumblr experience frustrating at times. So now I’ve added Google Custom Search and inline blog comments using LineBuzz. (I also joined the Yahoo! Group for Tumblr users and have made contact with other Tumblr bloggers — great to see blog readers from Taipei, Rome, and Slovenia!)

I am also experimenting with SuprGlu, a wiki (coming soon), and the new iTunes widget. (Anyone figured out how to add podcasts to the widget? Drop me a line please.)

Stay tuned!

the tech sandbox …

I’ve devoted the past week to getting caught up in my readings and backlog of RSS feeds.

I’ve spent some time reading about the convergence and integration of social networks. I have profiles on Facebook, Linkedin, and Ning. I use each site for different purposes.  So how many social networks is too many?  Gina Bianchini touches on this topic in the Ning blog and the integration of Ning in Facebook.

My experimental Tumblr blog is growing. I’m using it to automatically post content from my del.icio.us and my Digg profile. I don’t do anything to this blog, other than continue bookmarking in del.icio.us and Digging news the way I’ve always done.

And speaking of bookmarking, I’m still working on updating my list of del.icio.us libraries. If you know of a library using to del.icio.us, please feel free to send it to me via the comment form on my last post about del.icio.us libraries. (Comments are moderated, so your submission won’t be posted unless you want it to be!)

Lastly, I’ve added my-Twitterings to the sidebar on this blog.   Now that I’m in the Twitter public timeline, I’m getting lots of new friend requests.  (Mostly the twitterites …. folks with thousand+ friends who list their goal as “to have the most Twitter friends”.)  More on Twitter in a future post …. Twittering is fun!

Oh, it’s July 1st … happy Canada Day!

another week in the tech sandbox

I’ve had another good week playing in the tech sandbox.

I’m still having fun experimenting with Feed2JS. With a little bit of Javascript, you can take any RSS feed and repurpose it for display on your website or intranet. No Javascript knowledge required! Simply paste the RSS feed URL into the “build a feed tool”. RSS2JS then generates code you can use in your HTML to display the RSS feed dynamically on your website.

I’ve been using Meebo for instant messaging lately. Meebo doesn’t tie you down to one IM platform, and you can access your buddy lists in Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber, AIM, MSN and ICQ.
at angelacw.

On the home front, I discovered my millenial is quite proficient at searching the web and downloading free Pokemon games. “Everything is on Google Mom!” Indeed. Parental controls are now in effect on his computer.

Oh, it’s almost Friday … TGIF….

playing around in the tech sandbox

I’ve spent the past few weeks playing around in the tech sandbox.

Here’s what I’ve been doing lately:

• Fueling my Facebook addiction with all the new, albeit “beta” applications.
• Fixing my del.icio.us tags and bookmarks, and trying to figure out how to get rid of those “unbundled” tags that never seem to go away.
• Playing around with RSS to Javascript using FeedtoJS.
• Looking at mag.nolia, although I’m not sure if I have room in my life for another social bookmarking tool.
• I set up a twitter account, but can’t seem to find any friends using it.
• Wishing someone would send me a Joost invite, since I don’t watch “real” TV anymore.
• Downloading podcasts and audiobooks I don’t have time to listen to.
• Seriously considering a Mac I can’t afford … (boss are you reading this?)
• Going to bed very, very tired …..